Cristina Heierle Valero

Pompeu Fabra University, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia

Papers

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About

Cristina Heierle Valero is an educational researcher whose work sits at the intersection of robotics, pedagogy, and critical thinking in childhood education. With a growing body of highly cited scholarship, she has established herself as a pioneering voice in the field of Educational Robotics, challenging narrow, technically-focused approaches in favor of richer, more humanistic frameworks. Her most influential paper, "Educational Robotics as a boundary object" (2021, 39 citations), argues for a broader research agenda that repositions robotics as a tool for interdisciplinary learning and dialogue. In "Robot Presidents: Who should rule the world?" (2020, 31 citations), she demonstrates creative ingenuity by using food practices as conversational prompts to help children critically examine ethical dimensions of Human-Robot Interaction. Her 2019 methodology paper introducing "CREA," an inquiry-based framework for teaching robotics to children, offers practical tools for educators seeking more thoughtful pedagogical approaches. Through art-based research exploring children's imaginaries of robots, Heierle Valero consistently centers the child's perspective, making her work both empirically grounded and deeply humanizing. Her scholarship inspires educators and researchers to see robotics education as fundamentally about cultivating critical, reflective young citizens.